Five Reasons the Resurrection of Jesus Is Historically Credible

Christianity stands or falls on one historical claim: that Jesus of Nazareth rose bodily from the dead. Here are five widely-recognized historical facts that any adequate explanation must account for.

1. Jesus's death by crucifixion is one of the most certain facts of ancient history, attested by both Christian and non-Christian sources (Tacitus, Josephus). 2. Jesus's tomb was found empty, a claim even His opponents didn't dispute — they simply proposed alternative explanations (Matthew 28:11-15). 3. Multiple people and groups reported experiences they took to be appearances of the risen Jesus, recorded in an early creed (1 Corinthians 15:3-8) dated by most scholars within a few years of the crucifixion. 4. The disciples were transformed from fearful and scattered to bold proclaimers willing to die for their testimony — an unlikely transformation if they knew it to be a fabrication. 5. Skeptics and enemies of the early church, including Paul and Jesus's brother James, were converted by what they believed were resurrection appearances.

Naturalistic theories — hallucination, theft of the body, or the disciples lying — each fail to account for the full range of this evidence as well as the resurrection itself does.